JULY 14, 2015
FEATURES
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE
A&E
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Anchorage gathers for mayoral inauguration nburns@thenorthernlight.org
It was 4 p.m. on a Wednesday in Anchorage’s Town Square Park, and there was standing room only. The row of seats near the front were packed full of Alaskan politicians, both past and present. The chill of the looming clouds did little to damper the enthusiasm of the assembled crowd. Hundreds and hundreds of Anchorage residents — college students, retirees, parents and children — from every part of the city packed in shoulder-to-shoulder to witness the swearing in of their new mayor: Ethan Berkowitz. The inauguration, hosted by the mas-
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‘Gaming in Color’ examines LGBTQ gamers
Anchorage celebrates the Fourth of July
By Nathan Burns
THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORG
Mount Marathon
ter of ceremonies George Martinez, began with a presenting of the colors by the University of Alaska Anchorage ROTC color guard. Following Aaron Leggett’s delivery of the ceremony’s invocation in both English and his native Dena’ina, keynote speaker Georgianna Lincoln took the podium and spoke passionately about Anchorage, its people and its new mayor. “Will our new mayor be all things to all people?” asked Lincoln at the end of her passionate address. “Of course not. But as my mother would frequently say to her seven children: ‘If you can go to bed each night knowing you did all you could to make this a better place for our people,
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UAA LGBTQ community celebrates Supreme Court marriage ruling By Kjersti Andreassen photo@thenorthernlight.org
On June 26, The Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states. This has sparked widespread celebration among the LGBTQ community and its allies nationwide. A large number of Facebook profile pictures suddenly turned rainbow-colored; #LoveWins, a hashtag celebrating the ruling, was the number one trending topic on Twitter that day and the White House was lit up in rainbow colors. “It’s so exciting,” said Dana Bonifacio-Sample, associate director for Student Union and Commuter Student Services, SafeZone trainer and co-adviser for The Family, a club for LGBTQ students. Bonifacio-Sample said she and her wife spent June 26 celebrating. “We were just waking up as it was really hitting across the nation that the announcement had been made and it was the best wake-up call you could probably have. I had some tears of joy that morning and it made for just a really great day,” said Bonifacio-Sample with a smile. Practical implications of the decision Bonifacio-Sample and her wife got married in Hawaii last December. They’ve lived in Alaska for several years, but say they don’t necessarily see themselves staying indefinitely. Now that their marriage is official across the country, their prospects seem less limited. “I can’t talk for all gay people, but for us it means that now we can move anywhere in the United states and don’t have to worry about whether that state has passed a law yet, or if they’ve had a court ruling to overrule a law against same-sex marriages. It starts to open up some doors for people,” Bonifacio-Sample said.
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“There are things that people have taken for granted for so long, like inheritance, wills and things like that. Now you won’t have to have as many other legal documents, your marriage certificate is really all you need.” For Yasuhito Nakasoto, who is known by his nickname “Yasu,” the practical and legal sides of the ruling are even more important. He came to UAA as an international student from Japan in 2010 and in 2013 he got married to Brandon, a young man from Kentucky. “If I couldn’t get married, it would be very difficult for me to live here after I graduate. I would have to find a job that would sponsor and I’m not sure I could have found one,” Nakasoto said. Without a marriage certificate, Nakasoto would be dependent either on a work visa or a green card application sponsored by an employer and couldn’t have applied for a green card. That can be a stressful experience for many immigrants, who sometimes have to leave their adopted homeland behind while they search for a job. “On June 26, my first feeling was ... wow,” he said. “I got a call from a friend who asked where I was and told me samesex marriage was now legalized nationwide. I never thought I would see that so soon and I feel very lucky to witness this decision.” A stepping stone to bigger issues Bonifacio-Sample said LGBTQ students and their allies have been very excited about this ruling. “Hopefully they see people celebrating this victory and it gets them that much more confidence to be proud of who they are, to know that their government recog-
PHOTOS BY ADAM EBERHARDT
Junior racers pass the junior turn around marker halfway up the mountain during the 88th running of Mount Marathon on Saturday, July 4, 2015 in Seward, Alaska.
2012 race champion Matt Novakovich makes his way up the mountain after navigating the cliffs during the 88th running of Mount Marathon on Saturday, July 4, 2015 in Seward, Alaska.
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Allie Ostrander starts her descent down the mountain during the 88th running of Mount Marathon on Saturday, July 4, 2015 in Seward, Alaska.
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NEWS
THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015
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Economy and Jobs co-chair Bill Popp talks Anchorage outlook MAYOR: By Nathan Burns
nburns@thenorthernlight.org
The Northern Light sat down with Bill Popp, The CEO of Anchorage Economic Development Corporation and co-chair of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s Economy and Jobs Transition Team Subcommittee to ask him a few questions about his and the mayor-elect’s plans. TNL: You’re currently cochair of the Economy and Jobs Subcommittee with Robbie Graham — how is it working with her? Popp: “Robbie is a wonderful woman. She used to be the deputy minister for the Department of Commerce community and economic development for the state of Alaska. She’s been a successful business owner in the private sector, very successful in that area. She’s also worked with the federal government, the federal government. She’s got a great background in both private and public service, and she’s been a real joy to work with.” How have your recent subcommittee meetings gone? What ideas have you brainstormed? “We’ve held three meetings to set the foundation for what the economy is like and what the current condition is, which is pretty good in Anchorage: about 5 percent unemployment, some of the highest job numbers we’ve seen in terms of total jobs, and (it’s) relatively stable right now with some storm clouds on the horizon. We chose to focus on community development, which is a foundation of economic development, making sure that conditions are right to promote investment which creates jobs, and to look at a few key areas of new job growth, especially those that promote the maximum amount of gain in the shortest amount of time.” How long have you known the mayor? “I’ve know Mayor Berkowitz for several years, mainly in his role as a state legislator. He and I have talked on a number of occasions. We’ve met on his previous
campaign trail efforts when he’s run for governor. I wouldn’t call that a close relationship, but I’ve only had the pleasure of getting to know him recently during his run for mayor. We (Anchorage Economic Development Corporation) don’t play favorites with any candidate in any race, but we always want to have conversations with whoever is running for office, to give them the perspectives and information they should know. Mayor Berkowitz was very interested in some of the topics we brought forward, and we had several conversations during the mayor’s race, and I became very interested in his views. We want whoever is mayor, regardless of party affiliation, to be the best economic development mayor they can be, because when they succeed, Anchorage succeeds.”
Now let’s talk about your other current position: CEO and president of Anchorage Economic Development Corporation. The ‘Live. Work. Play.’ initiative was passed by the AEDC board in 2011 with the goal of making Anchorage the No. 1 city in the nation to live, work and play in by 2025. Would you consider Anchorage to be on schedule for 2025? “I think we’re on track. I think, like any lofty goal, it’s not going to be easy. We’ve got some things to work on. Safety’s been a challenge for our community. The housing situation is probably the most dire thing right now, of all of the things we can have an effect on. The lack of affordable housing is a real challenge. We’re the 21st most expensive housing market in the United States. We’ve got about half the businesses reporting that they’ve lost employees through not being able to recruit them or losing them because of the lack of and high cost of quality housing.” What progress has been made towards the initiative’s mission? “We’ve got a creative placemaking effort that will likely, later this year, see the creation of an arts council — which will be able to accept municipal funds and distribute them on behalf of the arts community and be able
to match private grant to bring more money to play in the arts community, that doesn’t have to come out of taxpayer dollars. It will help to promote the arts in Anchorage in a way that a focused organization can do in a way different than what we have now, which is a bunch of different organizations competing with each other for money for their individual programs. It’s going to bring more strength, more money and more resources to bear so that these organizations can spend less time scrapping for money and more time making art.”
What do the job prospects look like for college graduates in Anchorage? “I think it’s going to be a tougher market in the coming years, especially in any field that relies on state government funding. The state treasury has a real cash flow problem. The price of barrel of oil dropped into the mid sixties; it’s off by about $40-45 from (last year’s average price per barrel). That’s a substantial drop in state revenue and we’re going to start seeing some layoffs this year starting July 1. We think it is mainly going to be positions going unfilled and employees competing for fewer jobs, which means the state’s going to be more selective.” Oil prices have dropped from $105 last June to $60 currently, and with so much of our revenue based on it we have seen state funding drastically reduced. Will this reduction in funding drastically affect the Anchorage economy? “I think we’re going to see less money going into municipal government. Municipal government is going to have to maintain a lean and mean attitude in terms of its hiring and the end result might be some slightly higher taxes or reduction in municipal services. It’s hard to say. It’s a new administration, new ideas might come along that might mitigate that. We’re in a pretty good place in the private sector wise. Oil and gas employment continues to grow even in the face of these lower prices. Statewide oil and gas employment is up 600 jobs
this year compared to last (year), and while I don’t think that it is going to be that way next year, I expect everything to flatten out.”
So I take it you are not predicting disaster? “No, not yet. I think the Anchorage economy is far more diverse than it has ever been. As an example, one out of 10 jobs in Anchorage relies on the airport. The airport actually benefits from lower oil and gas prices as it makes fuel prices cheaper for passenger and air cargo. We’re the fifth-biggest cargo airport in the world, and that’s huge. We get 500 white body jets a week, and all the business that goes on out at Anchorage International directly or indirectly creates one out of 10 jobs in Anchorage, and their outlooks going forward are very good.” Overall do you feel about good Anchorage’s future in the next few decades? “Yes, Anchorage always has a bright outlook. We’ve got opportunities here that are more ground floor opportunities than pretty much anywhere else in the United States. We’re a young state; we’ve only been around a little over 50 years. We are a state that has significant resources that will be valuable to the international economy that will eventually be developed because commodity prices tend to ebb and flow. We have a reasonable expectation that oil prices will recover. Into the hundred-plus range? Not for several years, but realistically the seventies and, if we’re lucky, the low eighties. We have an opportunity in these leaner times to reset how we do things to prepare for when the price goes up. The private sector is far more diverse. This is not the 1980s. There are any number of people who want it to be for whatever reason, but I don’t expect people to pitch keys through their doors and take off down the highway. We’re gonna feel a pinch — I’m not going to shine anyone on — and how long and how hard is uncertain. I don’t think it’s going to be easy, but I think if anything, Alaskans have shown their ability to take big problems, hard problems and solve them.”
LGBTQ: Members of community reflect on nationwide marriage equality CONTINUED FROM COVER
nizes them and recognizes their relationships,” Bonifacio-Sample said. “I think the more that they’re recognized for who they are the prouder they’re gonna be and able to live a more healthy life, both mentally, physically, everything.” Bonifacio-Sample also said she sees the ruling as a stepping stone. “I think it opens up a new opportunity for the LGBTQ community to focus on some bigger issues. Marriage equality has been kind of at the forefront for so long, that I feel it was hurdle we needed to jump to get on to some other things, like equality in housing ... and a nationwide policy about employment, so that you can’t be fired from your
job. Some people might not ever want to get married, but those two things, your house and your job, are things that most people either want or already have and don’t want to lose. I think we have a lot of momentum in the LGBTQ community right now to make some positive gains and I think non-discrimination for employment will be the next big victory,” she said. Legal ramifications of marriage When asked how she perceived some of the opposing arguments, Bonifacio-Sample responded by pointing out the fundamental right to equal opportunities the Constitution offers. “I think it’s hard because there are a lot of different arguments and it depends on who it
is on the other side making that argument. But in general I think there was a lot about traditional marriage being between a man and a woman as defined in the Bible, but I think our Constitution is definitely not just the Bible. I think the Supreme Court really made that clear, that this is a legal relationship that needs to be honored by the United States because it’s a basic, fundamental right,” she said. Nakasoto agreed with that. “Marriage is not just a religious ceremony. It involves the law, taxes and much more. I feel like I have freedom now that I didn’t have before, and I feel more equal with straight people,” he said. Kentucky, where Nakasoto’s husband is from, had not legal-
ized gay marriage prior to the time of the ruling. He said that, while they probably won’t go back to live in Kentucky, it’s nice that they can now choose wherever they want to live — in the United States, at least. “Japan still doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages. That means that if we go to live in Japan, my husband would have to apply for a visa and our marriage won’t be recognized. I see this as a human right that should be recognized everywhere,” Nakasoto said. “Now I just hope people will stop asking me who my wife is,” Nakasoto said toward the end of his interview. “It doesn’t matter what gender you have. We’re a family, we don’t have kids but we do have a cat. We’re just a normal couple,” he said.
Anchorage inauguration
CONTINUED FROM COVER
then rest well and start a new tomorrow.’ Rest well, my friend.” Jack Roderick, final mayor of the Greater Anchorage Area Borough, administered the oath of office. “Recite after me: I solemnly swear I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the constitution of the state of Alaska and the Charter of Anchorage, and that I will faithfully perform the duties of mayor to the best of my ability,” Roderick said. Following his oath and an introduction by his son, Noah Berkowitz Kimmel, Mayor Berkowitz began his inaugural address: “Moments like these provide a vantage point. ... we see a community here that has been selfreliant with unity of vision and clarity of purpose. This is our place, from the mudflats to the mountaintops. This is our city, across streets and streams. This is our place and our home — our neighborhoods, our meeting spaces and our businesses. This is our home, our Anchorage.” He continued, speaking about his plans for the future and the city’s unique prospects moving forward. “It is our time to make a new Anchorage, an Anchorage united by the idea that we are uniquely Alaskan in a place that speaks a hundred languages and connects the globe at the top of the world,” Berkowitz said. “Here we are 300,000 strong, rich in culture, prosperous in opportunity and wealthy because we have each other.” Berkowitz closed his address with an admonishment toward cynicism, contentment and concerns about the moment in favor of optimism, ambition and work toward the future: “It is the way we have always achieved, it is the way a village has flourished on this spot for 10,000 years, it is the way a tent city grew from mud and mosquitoes, it is the way forward,” he said. Following the ceremony, the crowd was treated to Alaska Native dancing followed by a hip-hop routine by the Underground Dance Company. The mayor received yet another title as the UDC made the Berkowitz an honorary member. The crowd spent the next two hours crowding around the mayor and his team waiting for a handshake, trying the delicious provided cupcakes and taffy or meeting and talking to one another. “I like him,” said UAA student Samuel Gonzalez. “I think he’s a very good fit for this city.” To the crowd’s delight, the gloomy skies broke an hour and a half into the event. Ethan Schutt, a chair on Berkowitz’s transition team expressed satisfaction with the inauguration and a determination moving forward. “Beautiful day, beautiful event, now time to get to work,” Schutt said.
FEATURES
THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015
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MEET THE SEAWOLF
Same-sex marriage still has a long way to go In the year 2013, an alien brain slug from one of the galaxy’s most feared empires crash-landed on Earth and assumed control of a lowly reporter at this newspaper. These are his stories.
By Klax Zlubzecon
Translated by George Hyde The human race is a real irregularity in many ways, but the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage highlighted that again, in many ways. We’ve watched many civilizations grow and blossom. It helps to get them as advanced as possible before we enslave them so that they can contribute the most to our empire’s conquests. And one thing I immediately noticed about Earth was the intolerance towards other people’s sexualities. Most races I’ve encountered have exactly one opinion on the sexuality of their fellow members: Who the hell cares? And we don’t care about it either. You attract more servants with zeebarb than with hrashax. Uh ... or with honey than with vinegar. Man, the stuff you humans cook with is weird. Anyway, the way we see it, the more tolerant we are, the more people end up
supporting the empire. We are, as you humans say, on the right side of history — we always are. Part of that is because we write the history books of the galaxy, but it’s easier to write those books when more people are behind you. That’s, like, rule No. 1 of manipulating people: Make your positions agreeable. “But what about reproduction,” some of you sillier people may ask. We’re aliens. Our technology is way ahead of Earth’s. We have ways of getting more humans — or any species that isn’t restricted by heterosexuality. Which is to say, almost all of them. Enough about what this means for the empire, though. Let’s talk about what this means for the United States, because I’m guessing that’s where most of you are reading this article. So yes. Everyone now has the right to marry, regardless of sexuality and regard-
less of where they live. That’s great. Or it would be, if more states would just get with the program already. There are some states that are pushing back against this. Some are even claiming that the Supreme Court shouldn’t have the power to make that decision. Which is ridiculous, when you consider that the entire purpose of the Supreme Court is to keep lawmakers in check and make sure the laws they make actually play nice with the nation’s Constitution. Lawmakers in several states created laws directly preventing members of the LGBTQ community from marrying, and the court decided that it wasn’t in line with the Constitution. I mean this is basic government class stuff here. Isn’t that required at UAA? Or any school? I hadn’t even landed by the time George took his government credits and even I know stuff like that. The point I’m trying to make here is that the LGBTQ community still has a long way to go. And don’t get me wrong — it’s not their fault. It’s the fault of business owners who fire employees when they learn that they’re marrying a partner of the same sex. It’s also the fault of landlords who are fully in their power to kick someone out after learning of their sexuality. Even if lawmakers and judges on the local level don’t stop a couple from getting married (which they are working toward), a married same-sex couple still has to deal with those who control their wages and their homes and those people in control may or may not be total bigots. And if they are, well, it sucks to be the couple. I have a feeling that this is an issue that will eventually die with time. One trend I’ve noticed is that those who would try to make a colossal dick move like that are
older than those who wouldn’t do that. But then again, it’s been several generations since slavery ended (well, slavery in America, anyway), and the sons of sons of sons of sons of those slaveholders are still prejudiced against any race that isn’t their own. Hell, I just wrote an entire article about how, even almost 150 years after its death, people still fly the Confederate flag out of some delusion of rebellion against oppression. So would government intervention be needed on that level? Some would argue, as I did above, that we’d just need to wait for the older, more intolerant generation to die off. Almost like a societal natural selection, traits that are considered dangerous at a social level are slowly dropped across generations. But I argue that waiting for those opinions to die off is too slow an option. If social media is to be believed, there are still a lot of people out there that believe that any sexuality differing from their own is a sin and a lot of them are pretty young. But then again, if the U.S. government did try to step in with a solution for this, they’d probably bungle it up like they usually do. If recent congressional events have taught us anything, it’s that we cannot trust our current Congress to get anything done. I seriously hope, though, that the United States and indeed other nations across the planet, take a page from the Slug Empire’s book: A person’s love and sexuality is none of the government’s business, nor is it the business of those who offer someone living quarters or work. All you should care about is how you can use them.
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
EMBRACE THE SEAWOLF SLUG.
Long hours, tight schedules, and the perils of earning money A well-meaning column rife with clunky metaphors and horrible advice, Orange Rhymes With is the goto place to break the monotony of classes and laugh at someone else’s misfortune.
By Evan Dodd Contributor
As I’ve surely complained about in previous columns that were undoubtedly read by the employees of the business that stock our paper (and likely few others given the time of year), I’m spending my summer working long hours as a landscaper. This tends to mean that during the week I’m MIA due to 11-hour shifts that leave me just enough time to eat, shower, perhaps enjoy a beer and Netflix, sleep and repeat. This would be an easy problem to solve if my weekends were free to use as recuperation time; however, due to variety of factors, my weekends have become more akin to the experience of a travelling salesman on the run from the feds. The first problem is self-inflicted; even I’m self-aware enough to admit that my wanderlust and incessant need for change and travel tend to result in late nights and impressively expensive gas station visits. True to form my summer has been one long commute from the Russian River to Seward to Valdez to Hope to Homer and so on and so forth. While this trend has eaten up enough gas to make my environmentalist heart sob with despair, it’s also allowed me to see old friends, explore underground mines, hike glaciers and summit mountains so my inner granola can sleep easy. Though I certainly can’t complain about the opportunity to tour the entire state in a fashion that would make most tourists suffer a stroke from landscape overload, it has resulted in me half-assing a great deal of things that I had planned to do this summer.
Fishing, for example, was something that I had hoped to whole-ass as in my free time, only to realize that there was no room for dip netting during the entire month of July and that I’d have to be content for the occasional late night fly fishing run. The second issue: Apparently I missed some memo about Armageddon because all of my friends decided to get married in a three-month period. I came up with a clever excuse to avoid one wedding and am a groomsman for another wedding and thus am also on the hook for a bachelor party — which will spawn an incredible column that I likely won’t be allowed to print. Immediately following that lovely event is a third wedding that I’m socially obligated to attend, after which I’m granted a slight reprieve directly followed by a lovely wedding that would cause Wes Anderson to blanch for being too whimsical. Don’t mistake my cynicism for a deep rooted dislike for over-the-top sickly sweet young love (though some have certainly made that argument using such pleasant words like cynicism and misanthropy), but after the fifth RSVP arrives in the mail you begging to have to prioritize which monumental events you’ll be able to jam into a single summer. All of this is compounded by the many obligations I naively promised to attend such as birthdays, three-day backpacking binges, skydiving and even an ill-formed notion about trying yoga for the first time. Meanwhile my future remains unplanned, my car a hellish landscape consisting of most of my outdoor gear and clothing and my iPod an unmanageable mess of music I once thought was meaningful and now only irritates me during work. During the occasional free moment (generally showers) I’ve managed to divine the cause of all of this madness, which boils down to the age old problem of money. No really, follow me on this for a moment. During the school year, when my bank account dips well below dangerously low levels, it’s easy to turn down plans, trips and excursions. When I’m poor and in homeless Chris Pratt mode, there are no expectations for me to attend fancy weddings. After all getting a suit tailored is expensive and most couples don’t list Walgreens on their gift registry. However, when the money is flowing my easily distracted monkey brain tries to rationalize attending every trip and event because hey, I can afford it, right? The end result of all of this is what you see before you: An overbooked road-bound landscaper that seems to be running out of single friends as we speak. Quite frankly, if this is being an adult, then I want out. I’ll pull the chute, get off at the next stop and return to the days of having entire summers that stretched out for an eternity of freedom from employment and social obligations. But until that point I’ll add a suit into the mix of Gore-Tex outdoor gear and tattered landscaping clothes that comprises my backseat closet. And hey, who knows, maybe I’ll get a chance to sleep in sometime in September.
FEATURES
THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015
Many children participated in the Fourth of July parade in downtown Anchorage.
A child waves the American flag while waiting for paraders to pass by his spot.
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PHOTOS BY KJERSTI ANDREASSEN
Catholics for United States volunteers put finishing touches on their float before the parade.
Rusty Valves and the Repercussions were one of the most applauded acts in the whole parade.
The group Catholics for United States had one of the tallest constructions in the parade. On the front there was a large cutout of Patrick Henry, with the quote “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” from Henry’s famous speech.
Alaska Military Youth Academy marches in the Fourth of July Parade. Despite the rain, this children’s ride was one of several popular activities on the Delani Park Strip on Fourth of July.
A&E
THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015
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GAME REVIEW
‘Conker’ is a fun parody platformer By George Hyde
gchyde@thenorthernlight.org
The year is 2001. The Nintendo 64 is on the way out, soon to be replaced by the GameCube. The system is about to see two last hurrahs: one was the legendary “Majora’s Mask,” and the other… was “Conker’s Bad Fur Day,” a cartoony platformer starring cute animals. The plot is kicked into motion when Conker, the titular squirrel, gets hammered at his favorite bar, the Cock and Plunker. Upon waking up with a massive hangover, he finds himself venturing across a land of zombies, giant dung beetles, Nazi teddy bears and much more. Didn’t see that coming, did you? The first game of the Ten-Week Gaming Initiative is seen by many as Rare’s last hurrah. In the decade that preceded “Conker,” they had developed classics like “Goldeneye 007,” “Donkey Kong Country,” “Killer Instinct,” and “Banjo-Kazooie.” “Conker” was the last game they developed before they were purchased by Microsoft, after which their games would be dominated by mediocrity at best. And as a last hurrah, “Conker” is a real stunner. It’d be easy to call the game a platformer, but the pacing of the game makes its genre harder to quantify. It goes from new thing to new thing, leaving little time for ideas to grow stale. One minute players will be platforming as normal, and the next they’ll be lava-boarding or moving from cover to cover in a parody of “Saving
Private Ryan.” And speaking of which, “Conker” is effectively the “South Park” of video games, with more parodies than the “South Park” “Stick of Truth” game can muster. However, the game is smart with its humor, as vulgar as it often is. In fact, the game’s referential and fourth wallbreaking habits are put to great use to make a beautiful and almost artistic ending, which won’t be spoiled here. However, while there are tons of things to do in “Conker,” some of those things aren’t that fun. This was, after all, released back in the era of the N64 controller, a controller seemingly built for an alien race of tentacle people; it’s great for platforming sections, but for anything else, it’s awkward and unwieldy. That, and the camera often gets confused or stuck on objects, making it hard to make precision jumps or shots. While the majority of the game deals well with these issues, there are some moments that are almost unplayable. However, it’s worth playing through those sections for the great payoff that’ll inevitably follow soon after. “Conker” is funny, smart, clever, thought provoking and sometimes even scary. It may not be Rare’s best, but it’s still damn good.
TITLE “Conker’s Bad Fur Day”
PLATFORMS N64, 3DS
DEVELOPER Rate Ltd.
GENRE Scatological platformer
RELEASE DATE March. 5, 2001 (N64); Aug. 4, 2015 (3DS)
MOVIE REVIEW
‘Gaming in Color’: a look into the world of LGBTQ gaming By George Hyde
gchyde@thenorthernlight.org
The gaming and LGBTQ communities have a lot in common. Telling someone that you’re into either is risky, as it could mean being ostracized or bullied — sometimes within the communities themselves. It’s especially difficult for those that are into both, but “gaymer” culture is improving things. This is the topic of the documentary “Gaming in Color,” and while the outlook looks bleak, things are getting better. The film looks at several topics that the gay gamer community has faced, and how they’re dealing with those issues. For many people, gaming is a sort of safe haven, a place to relax and escape from the harshness of reality. But for many queer
gamers, playing online is simply not an option due the hatred spewed from online communities. And when it comes to solo play, there is little representation when it comes to sexual diversity in playable characters, bar a few games like “The Last of Us,” “Gone Home” or “Mass Effect.” Often, the stereotypes of either video gaming culture or LGBTQ culture bleed into one another in negative ways. A gay gamer has few options when it comes to discussing games with other gamers, due to the perpetuated homophobia within the gaming community. And as the film points out, ask anyone at a LGBTQ meetup and few of them will know anything about gaming. Chances are, they won’t even want to associate with gaming, again due to the perceived homophobia. But again, not all hope is lost. All of the sources interviewed in “Gaming in Color” have contributed something to the gay gamer community. There are gaming journalists who have brought up topics relating to sexual diversity on blogs or news sites. Many independent developers cater to the LGBTQ community in their games, such as the themes of sexual exploration in games like “Gone Home” or the upcoming “Read-Only Memories.” One developer works on “League of Legends,” and helps implement features to make the world’s most popular online multiplayer game a little more welcoming for those who don’t identify as straight. The documentary was created by Midboss, the developers of “Read-Only Memories” and the organizers of GaymerX, a convention created especially for the LGBTQ gaming community. The convention is featured prominently and it does feel like blatant advertising. There’s an obvious slant to many arguments in the movie, but it’s all for a good cause, so I can’t criticize the film for that. “Gaming in Color” is an eye-opening film, showing the problems that LGBTQ gamers face on a regular basis. Hopefully, enough people will see it to initiate a paradigm shift in the way gamers treat the gay members of their communities. It’s unlikely, but one can dream. If you want a look into the world of gay gaming, however, this is a film you need to see. TITLE “Gaming in Color”
GENRE Dovumentary
DEVELOPER Philip Jones
STARRING Colleen Macklin, Matt Conn, George Skleres
RELEASE DATE March. 10, 2015
A&E
THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015
| 06
‘Ju-on 2’ is overstuffed and undercooked By Jacob Holley-Kline Contributor
At their core, horror movies are simple: Something scary pursues someone who’s scared of it. The myriad ways this scenario has been adapted all over the world is mind-boggling. The result has been a glut of disasters and classics, but between those extremes are movies like “Ju-on 2,” a movie with ambition exceeding its capability. Split into six narratives, “Ju-on 2” focuses on Kyoko (Noriko Sakai, “Yesterdays”), a pregnant horror movie actress that gets in a car wreck, leaving her childless and her husband in a coma. Kyoko discovers, however, that the wreck was no accident. Having shot a TV show in the house where the murders in “Ju-on” took place, Kyoko was cursed along with everyone else on the shoot. The movie is nonlinear, beginning at the end and working its way to the beginning. This structuring is the one audacious aspect of the movie. The only problem is that it doesn’t really work. All it leads to is needless confusion. Where “Ju-on” admirably balanced six competing narratives, “Ju-on 2” loses its way in a hail of croaks and blood. Despite how messy it is, director Shimizu delivers some excellent scares. Formally, the movie’s style is more like “Onibaba” than “The Ring.” Frequent long shots, melodramatic posturing and silent close-ups betray Shimizu’s love for the classics. And like the director of “Onibaba,” Kaneto Shindo, Shimizu has a knack for the slow build but not for the jump scare. Any tension built in his approaches drain with their reveal. Technically the fifth film in the “Ju-on” franchise, “Ju-on 2” feels aimless. The series, by this point, has meandered through dozens of narratives, all based around a house where a brutal murder took place, but to what end? Characters live, discover this curse and die because of it. Shimizu’s endgame with the series is no clearer when the credits roll on this installment. He doesn’t give viewers much reason to care what that endgame might be, anyway. That is a chief issue with these average horror movies. They scare, but viewers have no investment. Disasters like “Manos: The Hands of Fate” and classics like “Night of the Living Dead” can maintain viewer interest, despite being on opposite ends of the spectrum. When all’s said and done with “Ju-on 2,” however, viewers just might forget they watched it at all.
TITLE “Ju-on 2”
RELEASE DATE March 25, 2000
DIRECTORS Takashi Shimizu
GENRE Horror
COUNTRY Japan
SPORTS
THENORTHERNLIGHT TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015
| 07
Left field logic Just one hoopster’s well-meaning take on sports and sports culture.
By Nolin Ainsworth
sports@thenorthernlight.org It’s been already a month since school let out, and there’s plenty of time for enjoying Alaska pastimes that don’t involve snow — which understandably, shortens the list significantly. I know I have taken to my two favorite pastimes already this summer: watching live sports and solving logic problems. Okay, so maybe doing my logic homework isn’t something I would call a pastime, but if you hacked into my browser history for the last few weeks, you might think otherwise. But learning logic has given me new insights into everyday things: luxury car commercials, my friend’s defense to smoking weed (“I haven’t paid for it in years”) and … well, sports. My younger brother played in the Alaska School Activities Association’s state baseball championships this summer at Mulcahy Stadium. I went to watch him and his squad, the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears (my alma mater), take on the rest of the state for a chance to be first in the last frontier. It had been three years since the Crimson Bears last won the state tournament, back when my brother was a freshman. At that time, he was still working his way up to varsity and listened to the championship game from our living room sofa. He’s come a long way since. To get to the championship game, the Bears had some work to do. While Mulcahy one day of the tournament, perhaps while in the concessions line waiting for a Frito Pie, my mind wandered and began thinking about logic and the recent twists and turns of the tournament. After the first day of the tournament, only one out of the four top-seeded teams, Chugiak, won in the first round. Juneau “upset” Lathrop 15-0 (if that’s possible), South Anchorage beat Wasilla 1-0 and West Valley miraculously beat Ketchikan, despite only producing two hits, 4-0. Baseball is a weird game. Here is where logic comes in to play (no pun intended). The field of logic (pun intended) is interested in the study arguments. All arguments are one of two types: deductive or inductive. We encounter each every time we turn on the TV or talk radio. Stay with me now. A deductive argument is one in which it is impossible for the conclusion of two or more premises to be false, given the premises are true. Example: Premise 1: Michael Phelps is an Olympian. Premise 2: All Olympians are impeccable athletes. Conclusion: Michael Phelps is an impeccable athlete. If we assume the first two premises are true, the only conclusion that can be made is the one written. Okay, now for inductive arguments. These kinds of arguments are ones in which it is improbable (but not impossible!) for the conclusion of two or more premises to be false, given the premises are true. Example: Michael Phelps is an American. Many Americans celebrate the Fourth of July. Michael Phelps celebrates the Fourth of July. We can’t say for sure that Michael Phelps celebrates the Fourth of July. It is probable, but not an absolute. In the world of sports, where people make arguments for or against plays, players, coaches and teams endlessly (calling all Stephen A. Smiths), there is no such thing as a deductive argument. We never can truly know the outcome of a match before it begins. A sliver of possibility always exists for the underdog, no matter how heavily over-matched, to be victorious. So the next time you hear the old saying, “… and that’s why they play the game,” after a startling sequence of events, you can tip your cap to inductive arguments.
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